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from the That's-what-they-WANT-you-to-think dept.
In the Salon
There seems to be a lot of science being thrown at the "Trump Phenomenon." Salon covers yet another, and interviews the author.
A new paper, recently presented at the American Political Science Association's annual convention, suggests a widespread motive driving people to share fake news, conspiracy theories and other hostile political rumors. "Many status-obsessed, yet marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn'," lead author Michael Petersen tweeted, announcing the availability of a preprint copy.
Truth, in such a worldview, is beside the point, which offers a new perspective on the limitations of fact-checking. The motivation behind sharing or spreading narratives one may not even believe can help make sense of a variety of threatening or confusing recent developments in advanced democracies. It also sheds light on disturbing similarities with outbreaks of ethnic or genocidal violence, such as those seen in Rwanda and the Balkan nations during the 1990s.
Preprint of the paper available at PsyArXiv, here. [DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/6m4ts]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:31PM (1 child)
Especially if it's facile. Think of the Atlanta bombing when they arrested that Middle Eastern guy, and nobody questioned it. Of course it was a Middle Eastern terrorist, everyone said, because that's what they do. It turned out to be an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by Eric Rudolph.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:09PM
Then there's Charles Stuart and Susan Smith, both of whom came awfully close to getting away with their terrible crimes by saying a big black guy did it. And an awful lot of people believed them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.